Oh hey look, a blog post.

      I know the good ol' blog has been just chock-full of fun stories, crazy adventures, and sappy posts about my kids. Sorry about that. I'm mostly sorry because it's not like I even have an excuse...I could write a post every evening, I've just been putting off for basically my entire trip. Speaking of which, I leave in 3 days! I got Monday and Tuesday, then Wednesday I give a billion hugs and kisses and maybe cry a little, then it's back home for more hugs (Unfortunately, social kissing is less acceptable in the States) and maybe a few teeny tears of happiness when I see them trees!

Since I can't really recap the last 2 weeks, I'll just touch down on a couple highlights and lowlights :)

HIGHLIGHT: Burger King

      The last night my family was here we took Marcos, Sergio, Luis, and Emanuel to get tacos for dinner. Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, all 3 of the taco stands I had been to (And therefore the only taco stands I trusted to not give us Montezuma's Revenge) were closed, so we high-tailed it to the next best place: Burger King. It was all good with the kids, though, because it had one of those big play structures inside for their enjoyment. I'd say a good time was had all around, Sergio ate 2 and a half burgers, Marcos broke rules and ran up the slide, Emanuel was so happy and loud in the play structure I though he was crying, and Luis loved crawling through the tunnels! It took him (And by 'him' I mean 'us') a little while to get up there...basically me tossing him up on those little diagonal stairs that go up to the top. But once he was up there, he was set. It was handy to have Mike and Pete around to run through the maze with them while we sat back and ate our food.

HIGH/LOWLIGHT: Adios, Family

     So my family left the next morning, leaving me all on my own. That was the low part. The high part was that when they left, Mike cried. There's 7 people who now understand the reason why 3 of the last 6 months of my life have been lived in a little town called Maneadero.

LOWLIGHT: Vomit

     The stomach flu has been meandering its way throughout the house, so that
s been super fun. I got a slight case of it  last week, but after 20 hours of sleep, TV, and lots of fluids, I was good to go.

HIGHLIGHT: Death by Cuteness

     No really, these kids are so cute it's almost scary. Here's 5000 words:

My beautiful friend, Ely

Mom and her baby, Javier

Marcos and Mike using the self-timer

Nice smile, Ne-Ne <3

 Emanuel. This kid, friends. I can't get enough of                                                                                       him, and I'll certainly never get over him.

That's all, Folks!

LA PLAYA

After going to church with the boys today, my family decided to take the rest of the day off. We came back 

to the cabana and helped Mark film a Frisbee trick shot video, which took about an hour because he kept 

missing. To be fair, it was rather windy. We then went to Maneadero’s single tourist attraction: La Bufadora. Translation: The Blowhole. It’s basically about a mile of people yelling at you in both Spanish and English, “We have hammocks here!”, “My pina colada is the best around!”, “Excuse me, would you like to look around my shop?” Once you’re done with all that fun stuff, the blowhole is actually pretty cool. We climbed up on the rocks to get a good view, and the spray helped to cool us off. When we got back to the cabana we headed down to the beach! I debated putting a swim suit on, and I’m really glad I did because as soon as we got down there we were in the water. I love the Oregon coast but man, the ocean here! It’s warm, the sand glitters, you can go out foreeevveeer and the water’s only up to your waist, and you get pretty good at body surfing! It wasn’t long until all the boys, my dad, and I had been properly dunked under the waves. Just as I started out on my mission to find out how far I could walk before I would drown, my family called me back in so we could head down the coast a ways and investigate the large groups of people we saw. Remember this spring when I told you about the hot springs under the beach and how, “in theory”, you could dig your own personal hot tub? Well, theory became reality today! It was amazing. The sand was steaming. STEAMING. Mike, Pete, and I found a shallow pool and tried to dig it out a little. I guess we looked pretty pathetic (or white and pretty?), ‘cause some nice Mexican boys dug a big pool close by and then offered it to us. We thanked them and hopped in! I felt like one of the Japanese macaques that sit in the hot springs when it’s all snowy around them. It was really fantastic till my dad made us get out so we could go back to the house. Somehow we managed to have a full day even when we WEREN’T at the house…that said, I’m really excited to go back tomorrow!